The film festival announced it’s full lineup yesterday, and today the newspapers are trumpeting the imminent arrival of Hollywood A-listers (Christ, I can’t believe I just used that term). The list of movies I want to keep an eye on is up to about 30, and I haven’t even gotten my bible yet. Dang…how are we going to keep it to just 5 films this year!!?!?

Despite last night’s anti-Scorsese rant, the film I think I want to see the most is No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Whatever issue I have with most of his films, The Last Waltz is brilliant work so I’m anxious to see if he can replicate it. Plus, on the off chance that Dylan shows up, it could be pretty cool to see those two up on stage answering questions…I don’t think anyone would understand a word they said.

Stupid corporate firewall. I can’t get Google Talk to work (even though I’m giving it the correct proxy info), and Google Desktop doesn’t let me set a proxy connection so I can only use half of it.

But at home? It’s pretty sweet.

Toronto has the 10th best skyline in the world, apparently.

I’m not sure exactly what the criteria are, but I’d wager that in a few years our condo building should bump up that score considerably.

[via BlogTO]

I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Martin Scorsese, nor am I normally a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio’s work, so The Aviator (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t really at the top of my must-see list. But given all the hype it garnered around Oscar time (which, to me, felt like a shameless pandering to the academy by Scorsese) I thought it was worth a look.

It was about what I’d expected: an overlong, pretty, historical epic. DiCaprio was good, but still looks and sounds like a little kid no matter who or what he plays. The rest of the talent, except maybe for Cate Blanchett, were pretty much wasted.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just biased against these guys, but I just didn’t like it that much. I was interested in learning about Howard Hughes, but I just get a bad taste in my mouth when I think directors and actors are saying, “Hey, lookit what I can do!”

This was one of those times.

Pat Robertson has completely lost his nut.

My brother just forwarded me this review of last night’s Mogwai concert in Glasgow.

Other than Radiohead, who arguably draw on a broader palette, Mogwai are the only British band of any size to push at the limits of what is possible with guitars. Three guitars, in fact – churning deliriously as the monstrous riff of We Are No’ Here, one of two new songs making its debut, rolls inexorably forward, conjuring the kind of grandeur only done justice by the word “byzantine”.

OK, no foolin’: I actually just saw a guy in my building wearing a “Han Shot First” t-shirt.

According to the death-by-caffeine calculator I’d have to drink 417 cans of diet pepsi before the caffeine killed me.

Whew.

No matter how many times I hear “Faded” by Ben Harper turn into “Whole Lotta Love”, I get chills. I remember the night I saw him live and I had no idea it was coming. I almost cried.

Prozac Nation (imdb | rotten tomatoes) first screened at the Toronto Film Festival back in 2001, just days before the 9/11 attacks. The film, though it won all kinds of critical kudos for Christina Ricci and Jessica Lange, got repeatedly delayed and eventually buried in a can by Miramax. It finally crept out to cable in the spring and to DVD in the last few months.

It probably should have stayed in the can. As good as Ricci and Lange were, the movie was flat out boring, and Elizabeth Wurtzel was a spectacularly unsympathetic character. They did a great job of making us hate her, though unfortunately I think we were meant to feel sorry for her.

Blech.